Songbird
by trip-trap
Summary: Four years ago at the age of twelve, Katniss Everdeen won the 70th Hunger Games. To save her sister she'll play them again. / All Peeta Mellark wants is to bring Katniss home safe, even if it costs him his life. The price will be higher than even that.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Hunger Games or the characters or places; I'm just playing with them for a while. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Note**: I'll be switching the POV between Peeta and Katniss chapter to chapter, and maybe adding in other POV's later on. I'll always indicate at the start of the chapter which POV is being used, and POV won't shift within the chapter. I hope this doesn't cause undue confusion! Also, this fic is very, very AU, and more than one character has been killed off before the story even begins. I hope this doesn't scare anyone away. 

**Prologue - Peeta**

There's an iconic moment of the 70th Hunger Games. The male tributes from Twelve and Two meet each other in a rush of spear and knife, and Twelve is impaled but Two is gutted. It happens so fast – Twelve yanks his knife from Two's sternum and stabs it into Two's throat, drags it across, spraying blood everywhere. Twelve's face is streaked with it. Two gurgles, falls back, falls still. A cannon sounds.

Twelve stumbles to the treeline and leans against a trunk, the spear still sticking horribly out of him. "You can – you can come down now," he calls, and she drops from the uppermost of the tree's branches.

She's tiny. Easily the tiniest in the Games: easily the youngest. Her black hair is muddied in its braid, and her small hands try to brace Twelve as he falls to his knees. "_Gale_," she says. She's the other tribute from his District – arguably the worst person to ally with in the Games, especially when he's so young himself, fourteen to her twelve.

"Hey Catnip," he smiles around a bloody cough.

"_Katniss_," she says, like it's a reflex, and he laughs, like it's a joke.

"Katniss," he says. He coughs again, and his blood spatters her face. "Katniss, I'm sorry I couldn't get you further. You're going to have to make it through the rest on your own." Anyone watching – and _everyone_ is watching – can see Katniss' face contort, the sob caught in her mouth. "You have the snares I set," he says, voice fading, "You have my knife. You can do this."

"I will," she says, and she's so strong to still be holding him up; she says, "Gale, I swear I will. I'll do this and go home and take care of your family like you take care of me."

"I know," he says. Blood is bubbling from his mouth; staining his chin, getting in her hair. "I believe in you." He can't lie down to die, not with how the spear is stuck in him. Through him. He paws at it weakly, and says, "Please," and she sees what he's asking and nods her head.

She lets go of him, stands back, takes a firm grip around the spear close to his gut, and _yanks_. She's stronger than she looks to wrestle it free from his meat. In that moment he screams, a pained animal sound, and the sob that was caught in her mouth breaks free, and she's babbling, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and he's panting harshly for an extra breath. He starts to fall forward, and she throws the spear to the side to catch him with both hands. She eases him backward.

He's bleeding out, now, gushing dark blood that stains the ground black, but at least he's lying down. Her small hands brush the hair from his eyes, wipe the blood from his mouth. He smiles at her.

"They say," he whispers, "That when your father sang... even the mockingjays... even they went quiet to listen."

"That's true," she says. Her voice is tremulous.

"Sing to me?" he breathes out. "Sing me to... sleep."

She swallows hard as she nods, has to swallow again as she begins. Her voice is achingly sweet, pure as it soars, and everywhere everyone is holding a breath.

He dies as she finishes her song. She closes his eyes with her slim fingers, and her voice doesn't waver on the last note. She sings it true, and lifts her face to the sky, eyes upturned to keep her tears from falling. Everything comes together in that instant – the sunlight catching the tears in her eyes at just the right angle to flare her grey eyes into diamonds, framed by sooty lashes, transforming her girlishly pretty face into something transcendent, beyond beauty – that's when, with her song echoing, everyone, everywhere, in the Capitol and in the Districts, in all of Panem, falls in love with Katniss Everdeen.

Except for me. Because I'm in love with her already, and have been since I was five years old.

**Chapter One – Katniss**

I'm awake before the sun. Morning is cool and dewy wet, and I walk across it barefoot. I'm muddy, a mess, from digging myself out of my sleeping place. It's a good thing all the houses in Victor's Village come with hot water showers or else getting clean would be an arduous, unpleasant task.

My next door and only neighbour, Haymitch Abernathy, is outside too. It doesn't look as if he's slept at all, and he salutes me with his ever-present ever-emptying bottle of liquor. Usually this is when he would take the opportunity to say something caustic or crude, call me sweetheart, tell me I'll wreck my voice if I stay out all night like this: usually, but not today.

I creep into my house, knowing how far I can open the front door before the hinge creaks, knowing all the spots in the halls where the floorboards will sound my step. No one has ever lived in my house before me, and it's the very best building the Capitol can provide, but it's home to four rambunctious children and two long-suffering mothers, and it's really no surprise that all the life within it has aged it, made it homey, weathered it with laughter and shouts.

I crawl up the steps – the trick to keep them silent is to distribute weight through hands and feet – and sidle down the hall, to her room. Prim's. My little sister, with her soft heart and healer's hands. All the doors in this house lock, but she leaves hers open just a crack, for me. She knows I like to look in on her most nights, knows I need to see her sleeping face, safe. She's curled up in bed with her golden hair falling everywhere, and Posy Hawthorne tucked into her side.

Posy does to Prim what Prim used to do to our mother, climbing in to sleep with her whenever she has a bad night of dreams. Prim doesn't mind; she says it helps soothe her own nightmares, and she has a lot, especially before days like this one. She's not alone.

I edge the door closed and pad silently to my own room. It's a barren place. I don't like to keep my things in it, and don't sleep well in its bed. The window shows only pale gray light, the sun still down, and I think my prep team will probably kill me for it, but I don't want to spend hours pampering my skin Capitol-ready. I shuck my dirtied night clothes and grab the first set of semi-clean shirt and pants I can find. On quick feet, I head down the stairs and back out the front door. Haymitch doesn't look surprised to see me again.

"Try to make it back before your stylist gets here," he grouches, "Or it'll be me the lunatic attacks with fabric."

"Threaten him with vomit again," I suggest, and don't stay long enough to hear his retort.

District Twelve isn't a large district. We only have one industry, really, and that's coal mining. A layer of fine black dust lies over everything, and the oldest miners cough up black from inhaling it for years where it's thickest, underground. Not everyone's a coal miner though, or comes from a mining family: the richest, the merchant class, can afford a different kind of life. They live in the town. The coal mining families, the poorest, live in the Seam. No one eats well in District Twelve, but it's usually the ones from the Seam who starve. I was one of them, would have died one of them, if it weren't for two loaves of bread and a dandelion.

There's a sort of unspoken divide between town folk and Seam folk, though it's a distance that has been crossed before. My mother was from town, after all, and my dad from the Seam. She must have loved him a lot to have given up her merchant-class life. I've never doubted my mother's love for my dad, not that it exists, not that its depth is drowning deep. Her love for him is why I stopped trusting her a long time ago.

I set off across town at a lope. It's still very early, though usually by now I'd see coal miners setting off to work: but no one stirs on the streets. It's a holiday after all.

I pass through the unofficial border between town and the Seam, and set off across the Meadow. The Meadow is really an overgrown, weedy park, a common green area for Seam families to take their kids to run around in, a patch of civilization set right next to the hulking wilderness of the woods beside it.

A fence, supposedly electrically charged though hardly ever truly dangerous, guards the Meadow from the woods. It's illegal to leave the boundaries of this fence which stretches all around the district, but I've never let that stop me. There's a hole dug under the fence, one my dad showed me when he was still alive to show me things, and I crawl through it. A little ways into the woods is where I've stored my bow and arrows.

I feel better as soon as I have my bow in my hands, my arrows slung across my back. I always forget how defenceless I am until I'm armed again, and then the rush of relief that hits me is so strong it's euphoric.

I take my game bag with me down to the river, set up some fishing lines, and go back into the trees to hunt. I alternate, for the next few hours, between checking the fishing lines and shooting squirrels and rabbits. It would be easier to do all this with a hunting partner, but I don't have one of those anymore.

I'm good, though. Even I can admit it, and Prim says getting me to say nice things about myself is like pulling teeth. But how can you believe it when people call you beautiful, say you're funny or smart? There's no _proof_. Not like seeing the arrow I shot going through a squirrel's eye.

My snares aren't the best, but practice has made them better, and when I check the ones I set earlier I find a rabbit. My lines have caught eight fish by the time I check the sun and see I should be getting on home. I foraged yesterday for my mother's medicinal plants, so I don't bother with that today, though I make quick stops by the strawberry and blackberry patches. Posy loves them, and so does her brother Rory, though he won't admit to it now that he thinks he has to be the man of the house. All in all, a good morning's work – the eight fish caught by lines, three squirrels, two rabbits and a turkey with my arrows, and one rabbit with my snare, plus around a gallon of mixed berries.

I look at my collected bounty, breathing in and out steadily, with pride. I know I have money enough now that I don't have to do this, don't have to go to the forest and hunt, gather, dig. But that money is covered in blood and when I use it, so am I. Out here I feel clean. Besides, what else do I have to do with my time?

I stow my bow and arrows back in their safe place, wrapped in waterproof cloths, and drag my catches back under the fence. I won't take all of it home, or even most: most of it will go to Greasy Sae, in the Hob, which is the old defunct warehouse that has turned into the district's own black market. Greasy Sae is an old woman who make a meal out of anything, and make it taste good (or almost good, anyway) no matter what the ingredients. We have a deal worked out that I give her fresh game free just about every day and in return, if a Seam kid comes by looking starved, she'll dish them up a bowl of hot soup. I guess if a town kid came by looking starved she'd feed them, too, but I don't think that's happened yet. I know I can trust Greasy Sae to keep true to the arrangement, and she knows I trust her judgment when it comes to which kids need feeding.

Some people wave at me in the Hob, and others stare but look away as soon as my eyes sweep over them. I keep my camera-ready face on, like a mask. Greasy Sae greets me with a gap-toothed grin and cackle-chortle, eyes shining and bright as I offload my haul onto her. I give her seven of the fish, two of the squirrels and one of the rabbits. I'll give my mother and Hazelle Hawthorne the turkey and the other two rabbits to prepare for dinner tonight, a regular feast, and the fish for Vick, Rory's little brother, who is in a picky eating phase. He's such a spoiled little boy, nothing like how Prim was when she was his age – but then, when Prim was his age, she was starving to death. Anyway I like to indulge Vick. I know it's not making him strong, but he doesn't have to be.

Greasy Sae presses a bit of paraffin on me in thanks. She doesn't have to, but it makes us a little more – even? Maybe. I salute her and head out of the Hob, back into town. Two more stops before heading back home where I'll probably be screamed at by my horrified prep team and sighed at by my beleaguered stylist.

First, the bakery. Mr. Mellark comes quickly when I knock at the backdoor, and beams a bit when I hold the squirrel up by its tail. He ducks back into the kitchen and reappears almost instantly with two loaves of fresh-baked bread, way more than the squirrel deserves.

"That's too much," I protest.

He smiles. "Don't worry about it," he says.

I bite my lip. Mellark is too soft. It's a wonder the bakery keeps solvent, though maybe not when considering his wife, whose meanness more than makes up for his kindness. I dig around in my pockets for some of the money I have stashed away. I hold out the coins, and say, "How about the squirrel and this money for the two loaves and some cookies? Pretty ones, for the kids."

"Deal," Mellark says, and a few minutes later I'm heading off with a paper bag full of artfully decorated cookies and two still steaming loaves of bread.

My last stop before going home and facing makeover torture is the back of Mayor Undersee's house. He has a weakness for strawberries, and I know his wife – when she's not too bedridden and medicated, anyway – likes blackberries. They were very kind to me when I was younger and I try to return their kindnesses now.

Their daughter, a pretty blonde girl my age named Madge, answers the door. She's out of the standard drab school uniform and in a pretty white dress, beribboned in pink, with a gold pin flashing close to her neckline. After seeing all the high fashion the Capitol has to offer, I can still honestly say that Madge's dress – with its sweet, honest simplicity – and Madge herself, with her steadfast surety, is a lovely sight.

"Katniss," she smiles, and I smile back. We clasp hands and give each other half-hugs. I'm filthy so I don't want to make her a mess, but she doesn't care. Even when I did go to school, Madge was my only friend: she's my only friend now, too. I didn't know that we were friends until I came home and she hugged me, tight, held me, for hours, telling me how glad she was that I was alive. Normally reserved, her polite walls broke down that day, and she told me of the aunt she'd never gotten to know, how she was so glad that she could know me.

We've been conspirators ever since.

"You look beautiful," I say, honestly, and Madge makes a rueful face. I know she's going to say something next about today, what today might bring, so I cut her off by bringing out the portion of berries I kept separate for her family. "For your parents," I say, smiling, and then I dig around again, open the paper bag full of cookies and pull one out. "For you."

She accepts my offerings gracefully. "Thank you," she says, smiling. Her eyes dart to the side, and I know she's glancing at a clock. "You should really get going," she warns, and I sigh.

"Yeah," I say. I start to walk backwards, and wave at her, calling, "Good luck!" as I leave.

It's not far from the Mayor's house to Victor's Village. Still, I drag my feet. Haymitch has disappeared into his house by the time I make it to mine, and as I open the front door – no need to pay attention to the hinges, not now – at least three different voices call, "She's here!"

And just like that, I'm whisked into the whirlwind that comes around every Reaping, the start of my season at the Capitol, where I have to look my most beautiful and act my most charming and bury my heart, so no one can guess I still have one.

oOoOoOo

Cinna glares at me. I'm naked in my room with the new dresses he's designed scattered on my bed. No single person, not even my mother, has seen me naked as much as Cinna has – but then, he's my stylist. I think he knows more about the dimensions of my body than I do, and right now he's very unhappy.

"You've lost weight again," Cinna says. "We've talked about this, Katniss."

I squirm. No one can make me feel guilty like Cinna. It's like some strange power. "Sorry," I murmur, and Cinna sighs.

My prep team has worked me over, bewailing the condition of my skin, hair, nails; scolding me for coming in so late and making them rush; telling me, in between these complaints, the newest gossip from the Capitol. In the wake of their concentrated chaos, I'm buffed and polished, shined up and ready to be made beautiful. I've had this prep team for the last year or so, or rather, Cinna has.

I've known Cinna for years – since I was twelve. He was actually on the first prep team I ever had, when he was just an apprentice stylist. I remembered him as being the only kind face in the room, the only one who, before my then-stylist took over, held my hand very gently and accepted me for who I was: a terrified little girl. He told me he was rooting for me, and I believed him.

"Well," Cinna purses his lips, "The green dress is out. It needs more curves than you have right now to pull off." This is a pity: green's my favourite colour. He holds up a red silky thing. "This might work," he muses. "Do you want your mother to do your braids again?"

Everyone agrees that the classical way my mother arranges my hair best suits my features. By 'everyone' I mean everyone who cares what I look like. I certainly don't. She's taught each person on my prep team, as well as Cinna, how to manage the style since they have to recreate it for me at least once in the Capitol, and they're all very good at it, but it's become a tradition for my mother to do them when I'm in District Twelve.

I nod, and shimmy into the underclothes Cinna brought before stepping into the red dress he holds open for me, feeling him secure it closed. It's a dark red, like old blood, not very bold, but with a shimmer underneath. Black is threaded through the skirt, tapering off towards the bust. When I move, the black gleams through the red, and it looks a little like the gradations of a coal as it flickers its heat. Cinna calls for my mother to do my hair while he works on my makeup, and they work together in practiced rhythm. When they're done I step into my shoes, heels thankfully low to the ground, and they motion for me to twirl for them.

"Passable," Cinna says, but there's a twitch in his lips and his eyes are warm, and I know he thinks he's done a good job. My mother's face is all misty, too, so there's no question what she thinks. "You need to go get Haymitch if you want to make sure he'll show up on time," Cinna says, and I nod.

As District Twelve's Victors, Haymitch and I need to be front and centre at the Reaping. Haymitch had a stylist too, once, or so I've heard: Haymitch does not go easy on his stylists. There is usually vomit involved. I'm not Haymitch, though; I can't afford to be like him. Not when I have my family, Gale's family, to look after. I know of the two of us I'm the lucky one, because I have something to lose.

Haymitch has already lost. Everything.

Stepping out of my room, a small body instantly runs into me, and I start to topple on my unsteady heels before strong arms catch me from behind. "Woah!" Rory says in my ear, and Posy giggles on the floor in front of me.

"Pretty!" Posy points at me, and Rory settles me back onto my feet, stepping in front of me with a broad grin.

"Very pretty," Rory agrees. Rory at fourteen looks so much like Gale that it hurts. Gale was as tall as a full grown man, six feet and climbing, when he was fourteen, and Rory might just beat him. He's had better nutrition for the last few years, and that always helps. Rory has the same Seam grey eyes that Gale had and I have and both our fathers had; Rory has the same dark hair and olive skin. He's calmer than Gale, steadier and more thoughtful, but he loves his little brother and sister fiercely, and that, more than anything else, reminds me of Gale.

"You're the pretty one," I tell Posy, and bend down to pick her up. She's still just a baby, four years old, and in her Reaping dress she's a perfect little angel. I bounce her on my hip and let her touch my face, probably irreparably mucking up the careful makeup Cinna has just applied. We go down the stairs together, Rory behind us, meeting Vick, Prim and my prep team in the kitchen.

Prim is showing Vick and the fascinated, yet disturbed, prep team how to clean the game I brought home; she's a horrible hunter, crying for the animals and begging to try to save them, but once something is dead she knows just how to take it apart and use every possible scrap. She's just tidying up when I come in, though there's not much mess. Prim is very neat, and unutterably beautiful in the dress Cinna brought her from the Capitol. She takes after our mother, who was also said to be quite beautiful when she was younger, with her blonde hair and large blue eyes. She unknowingly echoes Posy when she sees me, pointing and exclaiming, "You're beautiful, Katniss!"

I roll my eyes at her, reach over to tug one of her curls. Her hair is in easily the most elaborate style it has ever sported, probably thanks to my prep team's long wait for me to get home this morning. They all love Prim, who is like a living doll – well, everyone loves Prim. It's hard not to. "The team made me beautiful," I tell her. "You just have to wake up in the morning and you're there already." She blushes.

I nod to my prep team, knowing they'll be heading back to the train with Cinna, not going to the Reaping. "Thank you again," I say, sincerely. Venia, Octavia and Flavius are skilled at what they do, though their prattle is often inadvertently offensive; I'm fond of them, in a way, like a trio of spoiled little pets.

I turn, giving Posy to Rory, and pat Vick's head before I head outside for Haymitch's. Outside the day is warm, the sun heating everything up.

I haven't seen Hazelle yet. It's hard for her to look at me on this day, harder still for her to look at her children. The children she has left. I probably won't see her until I'm back from the Capitol.

It's different for Vick and Posy, because they were so little when Gale died. Posy sometimes gets sad and cries because she sees her mother being sad and crying, but she doesn't really understand _why_. Vick barely remembers Gale, and Posy doesn't remember him at all; only Rory does, and he's – well, he's forgiven me. Or he's said there's nothing to forgive, anyway.

We all get by. Mostly.

I don't bother knocking on Haymitch's front door, and find him lying in the trashed remains of his kitchen, clutching a bottle to his chest. I nudge him with the sharp toe of one of my shoes, and he rolls over, so I know he's not completely out. That makes this easier.

"Come on," I say, already exhausted with today. "Haymitch, come on."

He groans and blinks at me, bleary-eyed, before sitting halfway upright, twisting suddenly, and puking. Well, at least he didn't get it on himself this time...

"It's tha' time again?" he slurs out.

"Yeah," I sigh. "It's that time again."

oOoOoOo

People are gathering in the Square by the time I've bullied Haymitch into washing his face, rinsing his mouth and changing his shirt, and dragged him out there. We're on time, but barely, and Mayor Undersee and Effie Trinket, the Capitol's escort, look relieved when they see us climbing up the stage steps and taking our seats.

When I was younger, Haymitch was a terror on Reaping days. He still is, but he's my terror, I guess. Everyone has handed off the responsibility of getting him ready and present to me, I think because they imagine we have some sort of mythic Mentor-Tribute bond. Really it's that when I was thirteen I got so angry with him that I tore off my left shoe and threatened to blind him with the spiky heel. I wasn't joking, either: I meant it, insanely meant that if he made me face Effie's "May the odds be _ever_ in your favour," alone, I would hurt him.

They say I'm the only person in District Twelve Haymitch will listen to; I say other people don't know how to _make_ him listen.

The children are grouped by year, twelve to eighteen, all eligible to be Reaped and entered into the Hunger Games; all eligible for Capitol-sanctioned murder. This is the first year Prim's name will be entered for the Reaping, and the third year for Rory. Vick and Posy, thank God, are still too young. Statistically speaking, Rory and Prim have good odds. They've never had to take tesserae the way Gale and I did. I made sure of that.

I wave to them and they wave back, nervousness brightening their eyes, twitching their limbs. Prim stands out amongst the rest of the twelve year old girls because she's so beautiful, and Rory stands out amongst the fourteen year old boys because he's so tall and handsome. _They're safe_, I tell myself. _I've kept them safe._

I firmly squash the niggling voice that reminds me I was only twelve, that even with tesserae my name was only entered four times, that I wasn't safe...

My eyes find Madge in the group of sixteen year old girls, and we lock gazes for a few seconds before she nods slightly. I nod back. She's where I would be standing, if my name had never been drawn four years ago.

At exactly two in the afternoon, Mayor Undersee begins the ceremonies.

It's tortuous, listening to the same recitation we've heard every year, the history of Panem, of the Districts and the Capitol, and how we deserve the Hunger Games for our role in bringing about the Dark Days. I've read history books in the Capitol that tell more involved stories, slightly different: but in such slight differences, a wealth of meaning. Haymitch beside me is twitching for a drink. I know he wants nothing more than to be even drunker than he already is, if only to make it through what's coming.

The Reaping.

Even though it's worse than anything to sit and let anticipation build, it's even worse when Mayor Undersee winds down, ending his speech by listing District Twelve's past victors. There are only three of us, officially, and the first one is long dead. Still, Mayor Undersee places a significant pause between stating Haymitch's name and mine, and I know most people are thinking _Gale Hawthorne_ in that empty space.

It's true Gale didn't come home from the Hunger Games, but it's false to say he lost them. He played by a different set of rules and, by those rules, he won.

Finally it's Effie's turn to shine. Her pink wig is immaculate as is her wide, brightly white, toothy grin. Everyone knows that Effie has been angling for years to get a better District to represent; since I came home four years ago, though, she's been a little happier to be here. Less desperate to escape, not least because I'm popular with the Capitol for whatever reason, and she gets to ride on the coattails of my supposed glory.

Effie gives her trademark, "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be _ever_ in your favour," before going over to the large glass sphere where she'll draw the unlucky girl's name. She tries to bring a semblance of showmanship to this, exaggerating her movements and gestures for the cameras – pandering to the things that I usually try to ignore exist. I know they've been taking close-ups of me all afternoon, and I've kept my expression pleasant and interested in what's been going on, hiding all of my mixed boredom and anxiety behind firm mental shields. "Ladies first!" Effie says, and pulls out a furled slip of paper. She carries it back to the podium.

She flattens it. She reads it. I'm so focused on her face that everything seems to slow, and become impossibly loud and bright. Am I imagining it? Is Effie hesitating? Is she turning paler? Is she – glancing at me?

Effie is always conscious of the cameras, of the public face she presents to all of Panem. She told me once that when she feels like she won't be able to deliver a line properly, she takes a big breath and swallows slowly.

She does these things now.

Finally, she reads the name on that slip.

It's Primrose Everdeen.

oOoOoOo

The day before my first, and last, Reaping, I was out hunting in the woods. I had too much nervous energy to know what to do with it, and all of my shots were going horribly wide.

That was how Gale found me, berating myself with angry whispers about having missed an easy squirrel. I was just a little girl, and he was already almost a man, but he didn't talk down to me or condescend. We'd barely formed our hunting partnership – both of us naturally suspicious, desperate to survive, with the weight of our families' dependence on our backs. It took trust neither of us had to work together, but we had to, if we wanted to bring home enough food to keep everyone alive.

"It's one day, Catnip," Gale said. "It's one day and then it's over, and we go on."

"It's a _horrible_ day," I said, and almost threw my bow down in anger. I could never do that, though, no matter the state of my emotions; my hands clenched, instead.

"Well, yeah," Gale said.

I was so afraid. I was half-wild with fear.

It was intense, and reached in so many directions: I was afraid of my name being called, I was afraid of dying, I was afraid of what would happen to my mother, to _Prim_, of how they would eat, how they would live, without me there. I was afraid that my mother would slip back into her terrible sadness, the one that still had its grips in her, and that Prim would truly starve to death the way she almost had just a few months ago.

I looked at Gale, needing to release this torrent of fears on him, but the look in his eyes stopped me. His eyes were burning. Where all my fears were, he only had anger. Such terrible rage. I could see he was keeping it tightly leashed, maybe because he didn't want to scare me, maybe because we didn't know each other enough to be that open – and I wondered, suddenly, if the reason why he'd come out here was to shout, and scream, and drain himself dry of that volcanic fury.

But he kept it under control, because I was there; and so I had to keep myself under control, because he was there. Or we could both lose control together, and I could drown us with my fears and he could burn us with his rage.

In the end we did neither. We made a pact, instead: rudimentary, but heartfelt. If one of us was Reaped, the other would do as much as possible for the bereft family. Neither of us anticipated that we'd both be going to the Hunger Games.

When we were in the Arena, I made a promise to Gale that I would take care of his family. That I would honour our pact. That I would always be around to make sure they were fed, they were warm, they were safe.

I'm sorry, Gale. It looks like I'm breaking that promise.

oOoOoOo

It seems like I come back to my body in a dizzying rush: the shock of hearing Prim's name wears off and adrenaline jolts through me. I'm breathless, ready to gasp, and Prim is already almost to the stage. Her face is pinched and white, terrified, but she's still walking forward.

I stand, so violently that my chair crashes over backward, and then I rush forward, down the steps, I meet Prim and push her away. "_No_," I shout, "Prim, _no_," I push her away, push her back into the crowd of children – they're all _children_ – and I turn. Desperation has made me violent and I shout, "I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!"

Prim is behind me. She's safe, she's behind me. She's clawing at my back, screaming my name, screaming no, but I ignore her. I stare up into Effie's gobsmacked face. "I volunteer," I say again, insistent and loud.

"I, um," Effie stammers. "I'm not – I'm not sure you're eligible, Katniss dear," and Haymitch, blessed beautiful _wonderful_ Haymitch stumbles forward.

"She's sixteen," he slurs. "You need to be between twelve and eighteen and the same gender to volunteer. That's all."

I nod furiously. "I'm sixteen, I'm eligible, I volunteer," I say, talking so fast it's a wonder my words don't blur together. Prim is shrieking in my ear, trying to pull me back; her beloved voice screaming, "_Katniss you can't,_" and I push her away. Push her back. Strong hands help me, and I see Rory pulling Prim off of me, the look on his face stern and heartbreaking.

"Go on, Katniss," Rory says. "I've got her." Prim twists in his arms like an agile, furious cat, but Rory doesn't lie, and he does have her. He won't let go. I nod at him, and shakily walk back up the steps.

My heart is thundering, my palms are clammy and wet; I don't even want to know what my expression betrays. Effie pulls it together before I do, and beams out at the Square. "How about that, folks?" she says, smiling broadly. "Your past Victor is so eager to get back into the Arena that she jumps to volunteer! How about a round of applause?"

No one laughs. No one claps. Everyone stares at Effie, stares at me, stony and implacable, refusing to condone what has just happened. Refusing to celebrate it. Refusing to agree that this, any of this, is anything other than depraved and disgusting. In that moment I'm so proud it almost crowds out the terror.

The people of District Twelve all stare at me, and I stare back, and, slowly, as one, they lift the three middle fingers of their left hands to their lips and then extend them to me: an old gesture of my district, a mark of respect. My throat is tight and I nod, tears in my eyes, acknowledging them.

And then, because the whole set-up smacks of district wide rebellion and Haymitch is a wily bastard, he defuses the moment by slinging his heavy arm over my shoulder and shaking me, drunkenly yelling into the cameras, "That's my girl! She's got – got – spunk!"

Thank you, Haymitch.

He takes it further into the realm of the ridiculous by getting up close and personal with the nearest camera, shouting complete with flying spittle and stabbing finger, "More than you! _More than you!_"

I pull Haymitch back and shove him, semi-gently, in the direction of his seat. He stumbles there on his own and I stay standing, while Effie rallies all her self-composure.

"Well!" she says. "What an eventful Reaping! And we haven't even gotten to the male tribute." As if that's her cue, she starts walking over to the glass ball that has all of the boys' names. I stare blindly into the crowd. Rory has hauled Prim away, hopefully to my mother, so that they can calm each other.

I'm dead already, I know. A Victor going into the Arena again? It's like going in with a giant target strapped to my back. All of the Career Tributes are going to be aiming for me. Even though I'm no threat – even though everyone knows I only survived the first time I was in the Arena because of my allies – that doesn't matter. They'll want to get rid of me as soon as possible, likely at the Cornucopia bloodbath, and they won't be wrong to do so...

Effie's pushed her hand deep into the glass ball. She's pulled out a slip of paper. She's walked back to the podium, her equilibrium firmly re-established. She's unfurled the paper.

No name she reads out could be as bad as when she read out Prim's, I think, not even Rory's. I love Rory, love him like he's my own, but I'm in shock right now.

I see Rory rejoin the crowd, arms empty, and mouth _Thank you_ to him. I know he's found my mother, know right now she and Prim are clutching one another already grieving me. Rory stares at me with the dead weight of determination in his eyes and I know, right then, that he's planning on volunteering so that he can be with me, protect me, follow in Gale's footsteps. I widen my eyes in alarm, shake my head slightly. _No_. I glare. _You're not allowed_.

His expression firms. Defiant, jaw jutting. _Yes_, he's saying.

He can't. He _can't_. They'll kill both of us, the other Tributes, they won't let history repeat – and I'll die for Rory before I let him die for me. _Vick_, I mouth. _Posy. Prim. Hazelle_. These are all the people he needs to look after, when I'm gone. My mother. _No_, I think again, fierce, and stare him down.

Rory is stronger than I am. He's taller. His legs are longer and I know he can outlast me in a race. But I've had years of being in charge, and that authority makes it easy for me to wither him with my stare. In the Capitol my grey eyes are infamous, though I don't know why – they're common in the Seam; but I've learned how to use them. Rory's face whitens. _Fine_, it says, and he nods, tight and curt and hurting. _Fine. I'll stay._

Satisfied, I turn my attention back to the stage. The male tribute has been called while I was distracted with Rory, and he makes his way forward now. I see his blond hair first, then his broad shoulders, then his fair-featured face. Oh, no.

It's the baker's youngest son, a boy my age, Peeta Mellark. We used to go to school together. I always saw him at the centre of a pack of friends, laughing and playful. Every once in a while he would look in my direction, as if to check if I were still alive; I guess he felt responsible for my life. He'd saved it, after all.

I don't think I can kill this boy. In the Hunger Games, I might have to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two – Peeta **

This might be the first time I've ever actually touched Katniss Everdeen.

Mayor Undersee had us shake hands after he finished reading the Treaty of Treason. Katniss' hand is small but calloused. Her grip is very strong. I wonder what she thinks about mine? My hands are covered with burn scars from hours with the ovens when I was first learning to bake, and my fingers are thick, clumsy, against her agile touch.

For a second, I can almost forget I've just been Reaped...

Almost.

I feel steady as long as I'm touching her, but she lets go of me when Panem's anthem starts to play, and shock sets in. Sweeping cold shudders me from the inside out, and it's all I can do to keep my teeth from chattering. I clench my jaw. I'm going to the Hunger Games.

In the crowd, my oldest brother stands with my father and mother; they are staring at me, faces white, even my mother. My other brother is with the group of eighteen year old boys. Rotee won't even look at me. His shoulders are hunched like they always do when he feels ashamed. Part of me wants to assure him that I would never expect him to take my place, wouldn't ask or assume, _no one_ would – but Katniss just did for her little sister.

Katniss. She's standing next to me. Her expression is set, unsmiling.

Her eyes are blazing.

The anthem ends, and we're immediately surrounded by Peacekeepers who escort us to the Justice Building. They put us into separate rooms, where we'll say goodbye to the people we'll leave behind. I don't know who will come aside from my family – which of my friends, if any, will dare; how long my family will stay. If they'll stay until I go. If I want them to.

They don't come in all at once. Chall enters first. I don't even blink before he has me gripped in his arms, fierce and strong. He holds me. His arms are like iron, and his grip is desperate, and I clutch back at him, wanting always to feel this safe. "You can win this, Peeta," Chall says. "You can come home."

I know he's not saying this for me, but himself. He needs the hope the words give him. But I nod anyway, because I want to believe. I want to think that if he were able Chall would volunteer for me: I want to believe he loves me that much. I'll never know for sure.

Rotee and my mother and father come in before Chall has let me go, and even when my mother clears her throat, Chall's grip only lessens; it doesn't fall away.

"Let him go, Chall," my mother says, her voice sharp. She is always sharp. Her voice, her words, her hand. Chall holds me closer, instead.

He makes a choking noise, and his arms impossibly tighten their hold until it's me who's choking, and then he lets me go, all at once. "I can't –" he says, backing away, turning his head, but not before I see his eyes unashamedly streaming tears. "Come home," he tells me, and then wheels away and slams out the door.

I stand there feeling bereft before my father steps forward and embraces me. His broad hands cradle the back of my head, wrap around my shoulders. He says nothing. He holds me, and then he lets me go. He steps back. What can he say in an hour that hasn't already been said? Nothing that matters. Nothing I don't already know.

We stare at each other and, like Chall, I see my father start to cry. The sight almost undoes me. He knows that, I think, the pain his tears give me, because he cups my face with his palms and looks at me, intently, before letting go and walking out the door.

It's just me, my mother, and Rotee now. Rotee still can't look at me. He shifts nervously, twisting his hands. He's my big brother – he's bigger, he's stronger. In this moment I feel older. I know he blames himself for not volunteering for me. Part of me blames him, too. Part of me is angry, part of me is hurt. None of me is surprised. I didn't _expect_ him to volunteer. Who could? What Katniss did is the exception to the rule. It's by no means the expected thing.

Rotee is my brother. If he can't hug me goodbye, I'll hug him.

Brutally hard, I yank him to me and hold him. I think he hugs me back on reflex, arms going up before his brain can engage. I can _feel_ the instant it clicks with him. That I chose to hug him. That I – forgive him. Maybe it's impossible and unrealistic to expect him to have volunteered for me, maybe I should think that there's nothing to forgive; but we're family. There _is_.

The hug lasts for a long time. Finally we let go. Rotee's face is downturned; I know he's crying. I felt his tears. They're wet on my shoulder. He still won't look up. He still won't look at me. He, like my father, says nothing. He just leaves.

It's just my mother and me now. She sits on the velvet cushioned couch. I sit next to her. Neither of us makes a move toward the other. Finally she says, a bit grimly, "Well, we're probably going to get a victor this year. She's done it once before, after all."

I flinch.

She shrugs, as if to say,_ I'm just saying what we're both thinking._

The rest of the allotted hour passes mostly silently. Some of my friends have come; each time the Peacekeepers escort them in, my mother steps out until they leave, but she always comes back. I don't know what to make of this. The last twenty minutes we're left alone.

I keep seeing them crying. Chall, my father, Rotee.

This is the end. The last hour I have in District Twelve. I may not have liked it much here, but it's my home. It's my home, and I'm going to die. I'm going to die in an Arena like an animal, televised for the bored viewers of the Capitol and the cowed ones of the Districts. I'm going to die violently, away from home, and everyone is going to watch it happen, and no one is going to save me, and I won't be able to save myself – I'm no Career, I have no skill other than baking bread and frosting cakes, I'm not like Katniss who everyone _knows_ is the cleanest shot of all the illegal poachers in the district.

I've been on the cusp of it since my name was called – since before, honestly, when Katniss went up for her sister – and now it happens: I bend my head, hide it in my hands. Try to cover the tears.

It's violent, crying. It shakes me.

My mother makes no move to comfort me. I don't expect her to. Her hands are not soft for me, her words are not sweet, her touch is not loving. But she's here. Until the Peacekeepers come to lead me out, she's here: her face like granite, her hands stiffly folded. We don't hug or say goodbye.

She stays and I go.

oOoOoOo

It's a short ride to the train station from the Justice Building. I sit in the back of the car with Katniss. It's painfully obvious that I've been crying, and just as obvious that she hasn't. Her expression is flawlessly composed, making her look less like a person and more like a statue. Everything about her is very still. Our mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, is in the front of the vehicle next to the driver; in the enclosed space, the alcohol fumes he exudes are sickening.

We have to walk past a gauntlet of cameras on our way to the train. We're being filmed live across Panem. I know none of the cameras will be paying attention to me – I'm not the celebrity, the past Victor returning to the Arena. Some of the cameramen and reporters are shouting questions at Katniss, but she just walks on, serenely above it all.

When we're finally in our train, we actually have to stand still by the entrance and pose for a few minutes, letting the cameras get good looks at our faces. Haymitch stands behind us. His hands are on both our shoulders, strangely steady for someone as drunk as he must be. I hear him murmur, "Keep it together, sweetheart," and I glance sideways.

No one can tell unless they know Katniss very well – and maybe I don't know her all that well, but I've been watching her since I was five, and observation makes up for a lot – but she's _too_ still, too contained. She's about to crack. The few times I'd seen this before, she'd flown into a rage. I don't think anger is what is overwhelming her right now, though.

Finally the doors close. Almost immediately, the train starts moving, and I'm startled by how fast it is. Katniss must be used to it, or just not care, because she pushes past Haymitch and walks so fast it's almost a run to a door I assume must open to her room. She slams it behind her. Beside me, Haymitch sighs. "I need a drink," he mutters.

Looking at him, it seems obvious that he's already pretty well inebriated. But he's pale, his hands are shaking, and his eyes are all too aware. He was Katniss' mentor years ago – and since she won her games, they've mentored together. They've known each other for years, in a way have trusted each other for years. Haymitch is a joke in our district, but he's not laughing, and neither am I.

A trio of the strangest people I've ever seen, stranger even than Effie Trinket's hair, burst out of another room further down the hall. One is pale-green skinned, one is orange haired and purple-lipped, and one has elaborate golden tattoos all over her face. They're all wide-eyed and panicked. "Haymitch!" the green skinned one says, voice ridiculous with the high-pitched Capitol accent. "Say it's not true. Say Katniss didn't volunteer!"

"Her sister was Reaped," Haymitch snaps. "Of course she volunteered."

A fourth man steps out behind the strange trio. He looks reassuringly normal aside from the golden eyeliner. "Prim's name was drawn?" he asks, grim. He, too, has the Capitol accent, but softer, less affected. Haymitch nods. The man's face twists, fatigue and disgust transfiguring his expression. He and Haymitch trade glances, and then he says, "I'll go," and he sweeps past the strange trio – which has collapsed, each person clutching at one another, shell-shocked – to the door Katniss disappeared behind. He knocks on it and says, low, "It's Cinna. Can I come in?"

A low murmur answers him, and he opens the door, and closes it behind him.

The three strangers fall back into their own room, and Haymitch snorts. "Useless," he mutters. He looks at me, then gestures. "Your rooms are down that way. Dinner's in an hour. I'm too sober to deal with you right now." With that, he stumbles away.

The last five minutes have been surreal. The whole _day_ has been surreal. I find the rooms that must be mine, and lie back on the bed.

The train is mostly soundless but I can feel how it moves on the tracks. I can feel the acceleration. We're hurtling forward at a speed too fast to stop to a standstill. Momentum is gathering.

I curl up on my side and hide my face against my knees.

oOoOoOo

An hour later, I'm sitting in the dining compartment around a table with Effie and Haymitch – who, surprisingly, looks more sober now than before – with plates of food being placed in front of us by Capitol attendants. The three strange looking people from earlier haven't left their room, and I'm not sure that Katniss and that man, Cinna, will either, until they appear.

Katniss has changed out of her dress into a plain tunic and pants. Her face is washed clean of all traces of makeup, though her hair is still in its braids. She's holding Cinna's hand, almost absentmindedly. Effie sees them and beams. "Excellent!" she says. "I was afraid you were going to be late to dinner."

"Heaven forbid," Cinna says dryly, and I see Katniss' lips twitch up in a half smile. They settle into the empty seats. Katniss is next to me.

Is it strange that, even on the worst day of my life, my chest still thrills at being so close to her? It's like there's a whole separate part of my brain, my heart, my body that responds only to her. Nothing else registers to it, but her. I've always been like this. I've been like this since before I can remember – even when I didn't know her yet, I think these parts of me existed just to respond to her.

The food is indescribable. It's literally a struggle to eat slowly enough to preserve the manners my mother beat into me. I'm the only one who has this problem. Haymitch picks at his dishes with a sour expression, and Effie eats only the choicest bits of her dishes. "Need to save room for the rest," she says, and mutters something about there being no convenient emetic, which makes Katniss glare at her. Katniss doesn't eat, unless Cinna – who has very elegant, refined dinner manners – makes her. He's like a mother hen brooding over one chick, placing food in front of her and chiding her to eat more, telling her she's too thin.

She _is_ thin. Strange how I'd never noticed before. Everything about her is overwhelming. Maybe that's why.

Cinna introduces himself to me partway through the first course, a type of creamy orange coloured soup, as Katniss' stylist.

"You won't be anymore, though," Katniss interrupts. "They'll have someone new for me at the Capitol."

Cinna smiles. "Actually," he says, "I got the commission this year. Portia and I – Portia's my partner," he explains to me, "Petitioned to style Tributes this year. We made an impression with last year's designs for President Snow's winter gala, and they gave us the choice between several Districts. We picked Twelve, of course."

Katniss blinks at him. "But then why'd you come all the way out here just to style me?" she asks. "You must still be incredibly busy back at the Capitol."

"Not too busy," Cinna says, lightly. "I had everything ready before we got on the train. Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

Katniss blushes. It's fascinating. I don't think I've ever seen her blush. "Congratulations, Cinna," she says, very sincere.

"It's quite an achievement," Effie says brightly. Haymitch grunts. I don't know why it's an achievement, but I echo the congratulations nevertheless.

By the time we get through dessert (chocolate cake), all the rich food is clumping in my stomach, and I feel more than a little queasy. No one notices except for Katniss, who looks at me for maybe the first time that night. There's something sympathetic in her expression.

We relocate as a group to watch the recap of today's Reapings. They've all been broadcast live, staggered throughout the day so the truly devoted Capitol fans can watch them in real-time, but no one in the Districts has the time or the stomach for that. I sit alone in one of the armchairs, with Effie in the other; Katniss sits between Haymitch and Cinna on the couch. She and Cinna are still holding hands, sort of how my father held my hand when I was little. Haymitch has his arm spread across the back of the couch, his hand settling on Katniss' shoulder. It's a casual gesture, but there's weight behind it, too. Like it means something.

There are the usual Careers drawn – and, memorably in the case of District Two's male tribute, volunteered – from the first two districts. Both of District Three's tributes are young and terrified looking, wan faces looking around in bewilderment as they're ushered to the fore of the crowd. District Four's tributes are both Career, or at least look it. I don't notice much about the tributes from Districts Five through Ten, though Ten's male tribute has a crippled foot which makes me wince. Nothing about the Hunger Games is fair, but...

District Eleven draws a twelve year old girl. No one in the crowd likes this, but no one steps forward to volunteer for her either. Katniss flinches. "She's so little," Katniss murmurs.

"You were smaller," Cinna murmurs back, and I look down to their joined hands, see them clenched together. I see Haymitch's hand squeeze Katniss' shoulder, and she leans into him, just a little.

The boy for Eleven is the complete opposite of the girl, eighteen and huge. He could challenge even the Careers with size alone.

And then it's Twelve.

The cameras focus in on Katniss right at the start, before any name has been drawn, because she's District Twelve's best known face. All of Panem calls her Songbird. After she won the Hunger Games, her Talent – what you're supposed to spend all your time on, since you don't have to go to school or work – was singing; starting from when she went on her Victory Tour and every year after, Katniss was expected to, and did, give regular concerts and recitals. Most of them were televised.

The announcers like to commentate on Katniss every year at Twelve's Reaping. They make a point of showcasing her whenever possible, which is why I think she probably had to have a stylist come out to prepare her. She does look beautiful on screen, but reserved, remote and cold, in her dark red dress. She doesn't look like herself.

When Effie draws Primrose Everdeen for the female tribute, even the announcers are shocked. The cameras switch from tracking Primrose slowly, but steadily, making her way to the stage, and Katniss' face. She looks so stricken: her eyes are huge. The camera's close-up captures everything. When I was watching this in real-time, just a few hours ago, really, though it feels like a lifetime now, I remember _knowing_ before Katniss did it what would happen next – because it was Katniss. Because doing anything else would be unacceptable to her.

The announcers obviously don't anticipate it, though, when Katniss throws herself violently forward and bars Primrose from the stage. They're exclaiming in shock as Katniss volunteers herself, and one is insistently denying that it's even legal for Katniss as a past Victor to be Reaped again. It's – hard, painful, watching Katniss volunteer. The desperation in how she shouts it. She's so raw and honest, her facade cracked and fallen: this is the girl I love. Not the distant statue who poses, expression bored, for the cameras, but this one, here, half-wild and beyond thought.

Haymitch-on-screen supports Katniss' petition to volunteer; I see, out of the corner of my eye, Katniss-on-the-couch whisper _Thank you_ to Haymitch next to her. The announcers are going crazy talking about it. One of them is jubilant, talking about the early upset in this year's Hunger Games and what it might mean; one of them is clearly upset, saying that it's unthinkable to send one of Panem's irreplaceable gems into the Arena. They're so busy debating this that District Twelve's refusal to applaud, and its odd, silent salute, is ignored – even Haymitch's public drunkenness, always good for a laugh, has no attention paid to it.

My own Reaping goes largely unnoticed and unremarked upon, and I'm oddly grateful that no one is talking about the expression on my face, how I look like I'm going to shatter right there, fall apart. When the cameras show Katniss and I shaking hands, I'm surprised – at how I look at her, at how obvious I am, at how much taller and broader than her I am. Katniss doesn't notice any of this, I don't think, but both Cinna and Haymitch do, I know, because of the looks each man casts me from the couch. I carefully avoid their eyes.

Effie clicks the television off after, and brightly suggests we all get our rest because tomorrow is going to be, "Busy, busy, busy!"

I take the opportunity she's given me to escape to my room before either of what I'm starting to think are Katniss' father figures corners me. Getting clean and going to sleep. That's all I want right now. And that's what I get, at least for a few hours.

oOoOoOo

The screams wake me.

I think they wake everyone on the train.

The sound is raw and panicked, shrieking. It makes me jump out of bed, stumbling to the door, trying to find out what's wrong so I can make that sound stop. I look out into the hall just as Haymitch barrels past, throws himself at Katniss' door, and forces it open. Seconds later, the screaming stops.

It's like a magnet is drawing me forward. I couldn't stop myself if I tried from going down the hall and peering into Katniss' room. From the doorway I can just see Katniss' bed, Katniss sitting up in it, hair wild and eyes wilder. Haymitch leans over her, holding her by the shoulders and shaking her lightly, speaking to her in an insistent voice low enough that I can't make out the individual words. Katniss is nodding along to whatever it is he's saying.

A hand on my own shoulder makes me jump, and I whirl around to see Cinna staring at me. "You should go back to bed," he says, not unkindly. I manage a nod, and I do go back to bed, but it's a while before I get back to sleep.

In the morning, everyone pretends that nothing happened the night before.

* * *

o.o.o **AN:** Thank you for the reviews! I really appreciate the support. This chapter was from Peeta's perspective; the next chapter might also be from Peeta's POV. I'm still debating that. 


End file.
